The present invention relates generally to apparatus, methods, computer programs and storage media for communicating (transmitting/receiving) desired content information, such as textual information like novels, newspaper articles and magazine articles, image information like comics and picture magazines and musical tones, between individual apparatus via a wired or wireless communication network such as the Internet. Particularly, the present invention relates to an improved apparatus, method, computer program and storage medium which are arranged to, in a case where a user desires to acquire content information such as a novel or comic, appropriately select tones of background music (BGM), effect tones, etc. matching atmosphere of individual scenes of the novel or comic and deliver the novel or comic with the thus-selected tones to the apparatus of the user, to thereby allow the user to enjoy the novel, comic or the like while listening to the tones corresponding to the substance or scenes of the novel, comic or the like.
Today, with rapid development of wired and wireless communication networks typified by the Internet, any interested person can freely read a desired novel, newspaper, magazine or the like or view a desired comic, picture magazine or the like at any desired time and in any desired place, using a mobile or cellular phone, portable communication terminal, personal computer or other communication equipment. For example, with a portable communication terminal arranged to allow a user to read a given newspaper, the user accesses a newspaper (news) distributing Web site included in a predetermined server on a communication network such as the Internet and transmits various search conditions (e.g., those pertaining to economic news) to the server, in response to which newspaper articles (pieces of news) searched for in the server are delivered to the user's portable communication terminal. Then, the newspaper articles (news) are received by the portable communication terminal and visually displayed on a predetermined display of the communication terminal, so that the user can read the newspaper articles (news) using the communication terminal. Similarly, using a mobile or cellar phone or personal computer, the user can read a desired novel, newspaper or magazine or view a desired comic, picture magazine or the like. In such cases, if the whole of a desired novel, newspaper, magazine, comic, picture magazine or the like delivered from the server is installed in the cellar phone, portable communication terminal or personal computer at the time of the first access to the Web site, then the user can read the desired novel, newspaper or magazine or view the desired comic, picture magazine or the like only via the cellar phone, portable communication terminal or personal computer, without having to again access the server via the communication network.
Heretofore, however, desired content, such as a novel, newspaper, magazine, comic or picture magazine, is displayed, on a predetermined display screen of the cellar phone, portable communication terminal, personal computer or the like, merely in text and/or image form; thus, the displayed content tends to be unattractive and very boring to the user. Therefore, there has recently emerged a more sophisticated technique, in accordance with which sound data corresponding to the textual and/or image data are delivered simultaneously with the textual and/or image data so that sounds can be generated in accordance with the textual and/or image data displayed on the screen. However, in the prior art, the sound data to be delivered simultaneously with the textual and/or image data are a long series of data created in such a way as to correspond to the textual and/or image data throughout the entire length thereof (i.e., from the beginning to end of the textual and/or image data); therefore, it would take an enormous amount of time to create the sound data and to deliver the thus-created sound data, and consequently a great storage capacity would also be required for the sound data.